Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adverb nervously, or restlessly
  • adverb unevenly

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • Ryan asks the jittery Brett "How badly do you want this?" and he replies jumpily, "I want this so badly but I'm numb right now."

    'American Idol' 2011: Lucky 13 [Updated w/ Poll] 2011

  • But mostly there were goofy songs, jumpily edited dance sequences and the least scary game of chicken involving two super-slow tractors in the history of cinema.

    Michael Giltz: DVDs: 1939 -- Still Hollywood's Greatest Year Michael Giltz 2011

  • In so doing, I gulped a heaping cup of coffee and wound up jumpily awake until an ungodly enough hour to catch the third (Why?) showing of Chris Matthews '“Hardball” program.

    Archive 2008-01-01 2008

  • I concentrate on the swirls as the plane begins to hurtle towards a hedge like a dirt bike with wings, jumpily gathering speed for lift-off, the grass around us blowing smooth and flat.

    The art of aerobatic wing walking 2010

  • France's president, in his thoughts and actions, is jumpily unpredictable, playing opera seria and opera buffa in turn.

    Lord Weidenfeld of Chelsea: 20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Wall 2009

  • The scenes with the small spiders climbing over Reggie had me brushing my arms and jumpily checking my body for spiders long after I had read the scene.

    Book Chick City Book Chick City 2009

  •  Telling herself to try and relax, Sophie knew there was fat chance of any such thing if she continued to react as jumpily as a cat walking on burning coals around him.

    Mistress On Demand Cox, Maggie 2005

  • He knew he had work of a sort: at one time he was bringing food to gaunt-eyed tickler-mounted humans working feverishly in a production line -- human hands and tickler claws working together in a blur of rapidity on silvery mechanisms that moved along jumpily on a great belt; at another he was sweeping piles of metal scraps and garbage down a gray corridor.

    The Creature from Cleveland Depths Fritz Leiber 1951

  • The compass was oscillating less jumpily, and it was now possible to see some distance ahead.

    Round the World in Seven Days Herbert Strang

  • Then it was away, moving jumpily with its half-wrecked side tubes, but nevertheless escaping.

    The Devil's Asteroid Manly Wade Wellman 1944

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